The Royal House Of Karedes: Two Kingdoms. Marion Lennox

       CHAPTER THREE

      MARIA sighed, peeled off her dressed-for-success suit jacket, tossed it over the back of a chair and automatically reached for the phone to return her mother’s call.

      Her hand stilled.

      What was she doing? A ten-minute litany of aches and pains, followed by a lecture about how she needed to get a real job, were the last things she wanted right now.

      Get out of her clothes. Run a hot bath. Eat something. Then she’d make the call.

      Maria looked at her shoes, made a face and heaved them into the big trash can beside her work table. Gorgeous but impractical. She should have known better than to have bought them. Gorgeous but impractical was not for her. It never had been.

      And she hadn’t bought the shoes for today, she’d bought them for the weekend she’d gone to Aristo. She’d wanted to look sophisticated, but the shoes hadn’t done her much good then, either. Even if she’d looked sophisticated, she’d behaved like a—like a—

      No. She wasn’t going there. Not tonight. Rejected by a phony Frenchman today, rejected by an arrogant Aristan two months ago.

      That was more than enough.

      She stepped out of her skirt and padded, barefoot, to the end of the loft that served as a sleeping area. She tossed the skirt on the futon, peeled off her bra and pantyhose, yanked the clasp from her hair, bent forward and ran her hands briskly through the now-wildly curling strands. Then she tossed her head back, grabbed a pair of old, scruffy sweats, and put them on.

      Time for supper, though the thought of eating made her feel vaguely queasy.

      Nothing new in that. On top of everything else, she’d felt vaguely ill for the past week or so. No big surprise, considering that half the city was down with the flu. She probably had it, too, but she couldn’t afford to give in to it right now, not with half a dozen pieces to complete by the end of the month.

      Her buyers expected her to be prompt. And she needed the money they’d owe her on delivery.

      So, no, she wouldn’t even admit to the possibility that she might be sick. Absolutely not. She was under stress, she was working hard. The fatigue, the heaviness in her limbs, the faint sense of nausea that came and went…

      Stress, was what it was.

      Something to eat, something bland, would make her feel better. Nerves had made her bypass breakfast; lunch had been a joke. Definitely, she had to put something in her stomach.

      Soup? Scrambled eggs? Grilled cheese? Better still, she could order in from Lo Ming’s, down on the corner. Egg drop soup. Steamed dumplings. Forget the calories. Forget the cost. An order of Chinese comfort food, then she’d turn on the TV, curl up on the sofa, get lost in something mindless while—

      The doorbell rang.

      Now what? It was late. Who would come here at this hour?

      Of course. Joaquin. He knew what a setback today had been. He’d probably gone half a block, phoned Sela on his cell phone and she’d ordered him to go back and insist Maria come for supper.

      The bell rang again. Maria pinned a smile to her lips, went to the heavy door, undid the lock and pulled it open.

      “Joaquin,” she said, “honestly, you have to learn to take ‘no’ for an ans …”

      Alexandros Karedes, snow dusting the shoulders of his leather jacket and glittering like jewels in his dark hair, stood at the door. Maria felt the blood drain from her head.

      “Good evening, Ms. Santos.”

      His voice was as she remembered it. Deep. Husky. Perfect English, but with the faintest hint of a Greek accent. And cold, as cold as it had been that awful morning she would never forget, when he’d accused her of horrible things, called her terrible names…

      “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

      She fought for composure. Last time they’d faced each other, they’d been on his turf. Now they were on hers. She was in command here, and that meant everything.

      “There’s a sign on the door downstairs,” she said, her tone every bit as frigid as his. “It says, ‘No soliciting or vagrants.’”

      His lips drew back in a wolfish grin. “Very amusing.”

      “What do you want, Prince Alexandros?”

      A tight smile eased across his mouth and it killed her that even now, knowing he was a vicious, arrogant man, she couldn’t help but notice what a handsome mouth it was. Chiseled. Generous. Beautiful, like the rest of him, which made him living proof that beauty could, indeed, be only skin deep.

      “Such formality, Maria. You were hardly so proper the last time we were together.”

      She knew his choice of words was deliberate. She felt her face heat; she couldn’t help that but she damned well didn’t have to let him lure her into a verbal sparring match.

      “I’ll ask you once more, Your Highness. What do you want?”

      “Ask me in and I’ll tell you.”

      “I have no intention of asking you in. Tell me why you’re here or don’t. It’s your choice, just as it will be my choice to shut the door in your face.”

      He laughed. It infuriated her but she could hardly blame him. He was tall—six two, six three—and though he stood with one shoulder leaning against the door frame, hands tucked casually into the pockets of the jacket, his pose was deceptive. He was strong, with the leanly muscled body of a well-trained athlete.

      She remembered his body with painful clarity. The feel of him under her hands. The power of him moving over her. The taste of him on her tongue.

      Suddenly, he straightened, his laughter gone. “I have not come this distance to stand in your doorway,” he said coldly, “and I am not going to leave until I am ready to do so. I suggest you stand aside and stop behaving like a petulant child.”

      A petulant child? Was that what he thought? This man who had spent hours making love to her and had then accused her of—of trading her body for profit?

      Except, it had not been love, it had been sex. And the sooner she got rid of him, the better.

      She let go of the door knob and stepped aside. “You have five minutes.”

      He strolled past her, bringing cold air and the scent of the night with him. She swung toward him, arms folded. He reached past her, pushed the door closed, then folded his arms, too. She wanted to open the door again but she’d be damned if she was going to get into a who’s-in-charge-here argument with him. She was in charge, and he would surely see a tussle over the ground rules as a sign of weakness.

      Instead, she looked past him at the big clock above her work table.

      “Ten seconds gone,” she said briskly. “You’re wasting time, Your Highness.”

      “What I have to say will take longer than five minutes.”

      “Then you’ll just have to learn to economize. More than five minutes, I’ll call the police.”